Quick Question with Soren and Daniel - Hateful Delicious Waffle Fries

Episode Date: May 20, 2025

The guys set aside morals and allergies to design the ideal multi-course fast food feast. Plus Daniel's go a bone to pick with friend of the show Jason Pargin, and Taskmaster is back and this time there's an American. Follow Soren & Daniel on Bluesky:https://bsky.app/profile/sorenbowie.bsky.social/https://bsky.app/profile/danielobrien.bsky.social

A big caveat right at the top. I am famously lactose intolerant. That is not factoring into my decisions. Okay, yes. I've got a quick, quick question for you, all right. I wanna hear your thoughts, wanna know what's on your mind. I've got a quick, quick question for you, all right. The answer's not important, I'm just glad that we could talk tonight

So what's your favourite? Who did you get? Who did I meet? Remember? Words without words Word in order Go to the end Oh forget it

I saw a movie, Daniel O'Brien Two best friends and comedy writers If there's an answer they're gonna find it I think you'll have a great time here I think you'll have a great time here We've started. We're doing the show. It's happening right now. It's quick question. It's funny because I still wait for you. Uh-huh.

Whatever the introduction is going to be. My instinct is to still be like, No, Dan will start it when he's ready. No. People have heard the song and they're ready for us to start talking. Yeah. They're sick of the intro.

They want us to get right into the meat, which is what I'm doing right now is the meat. Wouldn't it be nice if we came in on a laugh? What if we had Gabe? Wouldn't it be nice? If Gabe could fix it so that we come in here in three seconds, we're going to laugh really hard. We were just telling a joke and everyone's like, oh, I missed it.

Oh, I'll get the next one. You ready? Anyway, welcome to Quick Question with Soren and Daniel. It's a pleasure to have you here. You missed that last one, but you'll catch the next. We should have been recording just before the laugh. People would have loved that joke. Pretty inside baseball. Just something between me and Dan. Yeah. No big deal.

Daniel, I have a quick question for you today. Well, first of all- Do you really? Yeah, let's just, hold on. Let's ramp up to it. How are you doing? I'm doing well. I gotta say I'm feeling personally attacked by our friend and guest of the show.

Uh-oh, is he there right there? Jason Pargin. Okay. He went on some other podcast, and I only know about this because my Instagram algorithm fed it to me. I don't know the name of the podcast, or what it's about, or why Jason,

I mean, I thought he's supposed to hibernate until he has another fucking book to hawk. So I don't even know what he was doing on my phone. But there he was talking to some guy about anxiety and his theory that people do much better when they have one big thing to worry about instead of a lot of little things to worry about. And his go-to examples for someone with a lot of little things to worry about was like, you worry about money or you worry that there are leaks in your basement or ants in your kitchen.

And I feel like this is fucking shot at me. That is death. All I think about are leaks and ants. And I'm just, just pulling up my Instagram to look at basketball highlights and, and pictures of my friends having fun and healthy recipes and DIY stuff that my Instagram algorithm feeds me, and little JP Pargies just fucking lists my fears out of nowhere when I'm just trying to enjoy my life. He's using you as the example of somebody who's gonna die in three years

because they're worrying about too many little things. What's an example of a person who can't function? I got one. I got a guy who went blind in his eye because he was so anxious. What dumb shit is he was worried about? Ants and leeks? Yeah, yeah. Imagine if you will, a person paralyzed by their bullshit fears. This person doesn't have real fears or anything, of course.

This person has little creepy crawlies. Yeah. I did. I mean, it's great to know he's a listener. Yeah, I think he is. I think he genuinely is because at one point we did a podcast where we were like, what's something that you're like watching that you're into? And I was like, well, there's a little show called Taskmaster that I want to tell you

about. And then the next thing I know he's on Alex Horne's, talking to Alex Horne about how much he loves Taskmaster. And I was like, I mean, it's good that you became a fan. I'm happy that you listened to us. Have you? But introduce him to me. Yeah, that wasn't, we didn't bring up Taskmaster so Jason can become friends with the creator.

Are you watching, quick question, are you watching the new season of Taskmaster? Oh, so I'm getting some clips of it, sir, to me, but I'm not caught up, no. It's the first time they've had an American contestant and it's Jason Manzoukas, who is like the platonic ideal. If they're going to take any one of us to be on that show, any one single American, he is perfect. He's perfectly fit to represent us and to compete on that show. I love that he's also, there's no ego to it at all.

Like he's completely game in it. Like everything that happens, he's like, oh man, how am I going to do this one? How am I going to do this little trick? And yeah, go ahead. There does seem to be a clear game emerging immediately. Like when they were doing the prize task of this season and Alex and Greg were doing some of their trademark banter. And Jason said, very auspicious start to a brand new season. And quick as lightning, very dryly, Alex goes, brand new series, Jason. And it's very clear that there's going to be a back and forth between Americanisms and Britishisms as just like a fun sub game throughout this entire series of television. Well they so they've had let's see I guess these

people weren't American they've had Canadians on the show before they had Catherine Ryan. Catherine Ryan was Canadian. May Martin is Canadian I think but I is that it they've never had an American other than him? Never had an American. Feels like a huge oversight. I've got some funny people here. Jason Pargin for one. He could easily been on it. Yeah. He's got this really great, because he's not just a writer.

He's also a contortionist. I don't know if you've ever seen him shake your hand and stab you in the back at the same time. That's one of his moves. All right. I have a quick question for you. And I think it's a fun one. So I wanna like save some time for it here.

Okay. I'm gonna ask you, Daniel. Well, first of all, Eric, you've considered yourself a connoisseur of fast food, right? You're not just a sit down restaurant guy. Absolutely. All right. Cause you're also big on casual dining dining and I am not as familiar with that

menu. You know Chili's, Applebee's, Carrabbas. You know those ones like really well. Carrabbas is elevated casual dining, but sure. Okay. Chili's, Applebee's, Friday's, Houla Hanz. All right. So maybe we can work up to that one, but I want to start with this. I want you to go through and make your ideal fast food meal out of all the different fast

food restaurants. Let's say you're in a food desert and all you've got is fast food, but you have the luxury of choosing and you could go to every single one of these drive-throughs, or I guess there are some that also don't have drive-through that are still considered fast food. And I want you to make your perfect meal. Yeah. And I'm gonna go first because I've obviously put a lot of thought into this.

First thing I always wanna taste when I'm eating fast food is my fries. So I'm gonna start with some Arby's curly fries. Okay. Listeners, connoisseurs of the show will know that I am the one last holdout of people who loves Arby's. I love Arby's. They have these Market Fresh sandwiches.

I think they kill it with those. There's a small misstep recently where they got rid of my favorite one. They had a Dijon and Swiss turkey sandwich and they kicked it from the menu. And I don't know why. I don't know why they would do that to me. I might've been the only person who was still buying it,

but I'm gonna get the curly fries because I think they're absolutely delicious there. And then I'm going to get, I'm gonna get a teriyaki chicken sandwich from The Habit. Okay. Do you have The Habit in New Jersey? No. So it started in Santa Barbara, but they're everywhere apparently now.

They're like into Indonesia and stuff like that. And when you get to Indonesia, you fucking made it. Sure. Like that's, but they're, they are, they're definitely an in-betweener. Like they exist as a fast food restaurant technically, but there's no drive-through. And when you go there, it has the same sort of ambiance as a Panera, which I don't know. Would you qualify that as fast food?

I guess I would qualify Panera as fast food, sure. OK, well, it's similar vibes. It's like the seats aren't just pure bus bench vinyl. There's actually some cushion to them. And there's lamps. It's not just hospital lighting. Wow. So I'm starting to think about why I actually love

fast food so much all of a sudden. Certainly not the atmosphere, but the habit has an incredible chicken teriyaki sandwich, like the best sandwich I've ever had. And I've gone to, you know, chicken is definitely hit or miss at fast food. They nail it every single time. And in a way that like, I would prefer that over a meal, a chicken sandwich at a cafe or something like that. Like they've dialed it in and they do

what you do with grilled onions. You do it on a seated bun. This is my choice for a sandwich. On the side though, I'm going to get some chicken shawarma from Zanku. I'm now realizing how local all this bullshit is. Zanku's nowhere else, right? Zanku's in Vegas and LA and that's kind of it. I don't believe Zanku should even be in LA anymore. Isn't Zanku like a, what's the dark history of Zanku? Was someone murdered? Yeah, yeah.

Did we talk about this on the show already? We must have. No, but I'll give you a brief recap of it. There's a man and woman from Lebanon who moved here. They tried to get some businesses going, couldn't really find anything. And they finally decided, they had had a previous restaurant in Lebanon, in Beirut, I think. And they said, well, let's give this a shot. They started doing Zankou here. There's one in East Hollywood where they set up shop and it started doing very, very well. It was making like 2 million a year or whatever. And then they decided that was enough. But their son was like, I think we should franchise.

I think we should have more of these. And they were like, okay, here's the deal. Whatever you decide to do on the side, you can have entirely all the profits from that. We are gonna continue to do our little restaurant, but you can still use the same recipes, you can use the name, but that's all yours. And so he did, he opened up like three or four restaurants, another Zankou restaurants,

they started to maybe become a huge success. The original patriarch died, this son who was doing all this started to get, I want to say pancreatic cancer or stomach cancer or something. And he started to go a little crazy. And then he invited his sister and his mom over for a meeting about Zen ku and he shot them both. And then he shot himself. Shit. And so, then there was a huge legal battle

from the rest of the family over who owns what parts of Zanku. And to this day, there's two separate websites. There's the website for the Zanku Chicken that is just in East Hollywood, and then every other Zanku in the world, it has its own website. and then every other Zankuu in the world, it has its own website.

Also, I'm gonna be getting some orange chicken from Panda Express. I don't even know if I'm gonna get to it. I might not even like, I might have three of those and be like, that's all I really wanted. Because once you eat three, you're like, oh. Yeah, what were you thinking? I did a lot there.

So I'm going to get some orange chicken. Just no, I'm not getting any rice. I'm not getting any noodles. I'm just getting the orange chicken from there or the chicken. There's a honey sesame chicken that I think is like a better grade of meat. I might get that instead.

But basically the same formula. It's just syrup on fried chicken. Yeah. And then lastly, to polish it all off, I'm getting a apple pie empanada from Taco Bell. Have you had one of those? Of course not. Okay.

It has all the, it doesn't have any dairy in it. It probably does. Well, I guess the jury's out. It is, so there used to be a fried apple pie at McDonald's long ago when we were children. And it was discontinued because I think it was so bad for you. It was like just fried sugar. Is that where McDonald's thought to draw a line? I think that's the problem. McDonald's was like, people are eating this once or twice and getting diabetes.

McDonald's was like, people are eating this once or twice and getting diabetes. And America was like, you have to stop. Well, I think that then Taco Bell saw the vacancy and they created the apple pie empanada. And it's unbelievable. It's just a fried empanada with a coating of hard sugar on the outside, so it's very crispy. And then it's fat. So it's just full of this apple pie filling and not like your traditional I'm going to eat an apple pie type of filling that you would expect. Oh yeah, I know that's very sugary and I remember what that's like. This is even more so. This is like the consistency of toothpaste. It's so sugary. And there are actual some pieces of apple in it, but it's delectable. It's so tasty. And it would really go a long way to washing down my three pieces of

orange chicken. Yes. It's a very chicken heavy meal that you've assembled. Oh, yeah. So I should preface all of this by saying that I don't eat beef. I go to fast food all the time and I choose either vegetarian options or I choose chicken options. Yeah. I, a little surprised that there's not a turkey sandwich somewhere. Yeah. But I guess your options are Subway, which is terrible now. Jersey Mike's, which you don't love that much anymore. Yeah. Subway, which is terrible now. Jersey Mike's, which you don't love that much. Anymore. And my other option would be,

there's a turkey burger at Fat Burger, but it just takes too long. And I also say, depending on which fat burger you go to, it's pretty hit or miss. There's no uniformity for that fast food restaurant. I will,

I love that list. I'm gonna, a big caveat right at the top. I am famously lactose intolerant. Yes. That is not factoring into my decisions. Okay, yes. I am. Let's go.

I think in my brain, you said food desert, which is, which describes an actual thing, which describes like a place in the world. It's like the shorthand for there are not a lot of store and restaurant options available. I went in a very literal way of food desert and then I made mine a food island. So I'm gonna eat the meal and then I guess die on the island.

That's why I'm allowed to have the dairy on it. Right, nobody else is there other than the employees who work in the restaurants. It's, you're allowed to shit your braids out after you eat. Yeah. And my, the next caveat, I'll start with fries the same way you did and say something controversial

that my wife is gonna be unhappy that I say in the podcast because she doesn't even like when I say this in real life but I would get Chick-fil-A fries. I know we're not supposed to support. Yes, we're not supposed to support Chick-fil-A because they're like, every fast food company is, I guarantee you, owned at the top by a ghoul

or a hedge fund of ghouls. Chick-fil-A is sort of the loudest and most prominent. They're a family owned fast food chain that not only skews heavily conservative, heavily religious and not a good way, heavily to the right. They're also like, are loud about donating to specifically anti LGBTQ costs. Anti-abortion. Anti-abortion as well, yeah. It's not just that they're ghouls,

like the rest of these companies are ghouls who tend to skew Republican because that's, because Republican tax benefits help ghouls. They're going out of their way to be like extra bad. So there have been in my lifetime many like prominent boycotts of Chick-fil-A because they've backed certain legislation that we hate and they've just been less prominent lifetime boycotts of Chick-fil-A that people have done which is like well I'm just not going to give this place my business ever. Um, I know I'm not supposed to support them.

Let's start with the truth. In my defense, I really like it. Yeah, I know. And that's why I give my money, and that's why I eat it, and it sucks. That's the real reason. I like it so fucking much. My other defense. They are, I will say they're waffle fries. I've it so fucking much. My other defense. They are. I will say they're waffle fries. I've had their waffle fries and they are really.

They're so good. They're the best fries in the market. My other defense is that I didn't have Chick-fil-A for the first. 32 years of my life. I have a lot of time logged in the boycott Chick-fil-A war, so I feel like some of it is time served. I found Chick-fil-A late and got really into them. Another thing I would say in my fake defense is I didn't have Chick-fil-A around the 2016 election or around the other election, it didn't do anything.

And a lot of it sounds like I'm running myself off the hook because at the end of the day, the first reason is still the main one. The first reason I like it and I want it. That's still the main reason. All of this is like retroactive justification, but it's also things that I believe. I think the idea of boycotting businesses is in many cases a lever of power that we can exercise. I also think in a lot of other cases, we have been made to feel so helpless that we will

do anything that gives us the illusion of power, including boycotting a restaurant that is not going to feel our boycotts, just so we can think we're impacting change in some way. And I don't really think we are in the battle against Chick-fil-A. And I don't think it's the most substantial use of our limited power to make ourselves more miserable by depriving ourselves of the thing we want. I understand what you're saying.

I'm still bad. It's okay. I'm still doing the wrong thing. You're still doing a thing that everyone has asked you please not do. I know. I understand. And I'm giving them money. Yeah, you are.

But I mean, here's... I also don't want to stand in like... I don't want to defend Chick-fil-A because it's also not a place that I eat specifically for those reasons. Yeah. But I had to go there before like a road trip or wherever it's like the only option that's got chicken. And when I've gone there, I will say that every single time the employees are like on it. Like they seem like they're actually happy to be there. And so there's, there's something I don't know. I don't, I don't want to speak to like what

Chick-fil-A is actually doing in their hiring process or how they make their incentives for employees, but like they clearly are hiring people because people want to be there. And I'm like, so they are doing a lot of things that are, that are dastardly, that are dastardly for people who are not me. Like they're doing stuff that's bad for the LGBT community. They're doing stuff bad for women. And so it's very easy for me to sit in my privilege and just be like, well, I'm going to eat their fucking anyway. Who cares? But they are also, it does seem like they are doing some things that are just like In-N-Out. In-N-Out puts like on the bottoms of their cups, they put like little proverbs or whatever on their cups. And they're very religious.

Their palm trees crossing are form a cross. I'm sure that they have a lot of the same ideologies as Chick-fil-A, but the people who work there seem so fucking happy to be there. Like, I don't know if their benefits are good, they're being paid better than anybody else. They seem like they genuinely like working there. And I'm like, well, nobody's going to be all good. Nobody's going to be all good. I have to kind of pick and choose. I know all the terrible things that McDonald's is doing. I know that they're getting their beef from Central and South

America. I know that they're slashing beef from Central and South America. I know that they're slashing burning rain forest just to make room for fucking cows that are getting to be in those burgers. I'm not eating the burger, but I'm still shopping there. I'm still going to McDonald's and I'm contributing to global warming every day I go there. Wendy's is allowing and encouraging basically slave labor to get their tomatoes because they refuse to sign a

pact that would force them to get tomatoes in a place that does not involve indentured servitude in the harvesting or the farming of tomatoes. Wendy's doesn't care. They're using slaves to get their tomatoes and they're letting people die in the pursuit of cheap tomatoes. Subway is an endeavor that is practically multi-level marketing scheme, where they target people to open up franchises that they can never pay off. That is like the business model of Subway is to take advantage of people who want to start a business

until those businesses ruin that person financially and Subway shuts its down and does it again somewhere else, they're all bad. Yes, they are all bad. Chick-fil-A is still the one that has put the badness on its website. It's like part of it's, we're doing this thing and we don't think we're bad

and we are mad at anyone who thinks we are bad. For those reasons, they are probably the worst. Their fries are good. I try to think about like I'm trying to think about Karmic Balance. I'm trying to think like 30 years of not supporting Chick-fil-A. I'm trying to think about the amount of money that I send to abortion access in New Jersey every single month. I'm trying to think of- Right, maybe counterbalance.

The show that I work for that is- Yeah. Not officially left wing propaganda, but we certainly make a show every single week that loudly proclaims that we stand for the things that the Chick-fil-A's of the world don't stand for and we support legislation that tries to make what Chick-fil-A's of the world don't stand for and we support legislation that tries to make what Chick-fil-A does impossible.

So maybe it's a net zero if I get the fucking fries that make me happy. Yeah, I mean, also, if you're donating to those causes, that is basically your, and you're donating more to those causes than you are to Chick-fil-A, which is not hard to do. It's not expensive to go to Chick-fil-A, and I imagine you go there like once a month at the most.

So like, that's more than a wash. Like you're already in the black. Thanks. So that's my first one, Chick-fil-A fries. They're so fucking good. If you've never had Chick-fil-A, don't do it. Don't get hooked now. Yeah, don't go now. They had a, they had recently, they had a chicken pimento sandwich, which was like-

It's still innovating. Fuck. Yeah, I know. They did, I saw a commercial for it. There was a, it's a chicken sandwich and it had like this pimento cheese spread on top of it. And I was like, God damn it. That's exactly my wheelhouse. Give me something fucking brand new. Give me something that I've never tried before. Give it to me in chicken form. And I'm like, God damn it. I didn't get to get it. But obviously, I really, really wanted to. So I will boycott on your behalf. How about that?

Thank you. I'll take it. Yeah. The next thing, I think I'm looking at the thing that I want. It's a Del Taco Epic Cali Bacon Burrito with the beef. That's a burrito with French fries in it. And I know we have the technology to put French fries,

not potatoes, but French fries. I know we have the technology to put French fries, not potatoes, but French fries. I know we have the technology to put French fries in our burritos on the East coast, but we just don't because we lack imagination. I moved to California and people were putting French fries in their burritos at Roberto's and at Del Taco and it was a revelation. It's probably because Del Taco was the first one that I came across that did this, where they put crinkle cut fries inside the burrito.

Yeah. But it knocked my socks off. And I- I think that was invented in San Diego, honestly. I think that's like- At Roberto's? Maybe, yeah. But it was, yeah, like a Joe Chandler,

who is a friend of the show and also like huge advocate for San Diego. Can't fucking stop talking about it. Talks about that Baja style or California style. I don't know what they call it. But he was like, yeah, they invented that in San Diego. And I never bothered to look it up because I just don't want to do it. Yeah, that's the kind of thing that like it's such a. Like stupid lie that if it's a lie, let him have it. Let him. He needs it. If Joe wants people to think that San Diego invented fries and burritos.

Yeah, man. Sure. I agree with you. It's delicious. OK, so it's got bacon. What else is it got? It's got bacon. It's got cheese. It's got this kind of cheese. Are we talking It's got bacon, it's got cheese. It's got this- What kind of cheese are we talking? Is it like the nacho cheese? Just cheddar cheese.

Okay. It's just straightforward cheddar cheese. Okay. And it's got this, the website is saying it's a chipotle sauce. It's like a chipotle barbecue sauce. I think the website is missing out some key details here. It's just a beef, potato, bacon, chipotle burrito. It's so good. It's just

the perfect fucking football sized amount of food. Yeah. And I think I'm still and this is insane. I am still getting two bacon cheeseburgers from McDonald's. Not like quarter pounders, not like a substantial thing. I'm getting the number two amount of burgers, just like two plain burgers, add bacon. I guess if I'm getting a number two, I'm getting the fries. And I'm getting a Diet coke fountain soda as well. So all three of my meals are fries. Well, I mean, McDonald's fries are absolutely outstanding. And so when I chose my curly fries,

I know that I'm giving up some other places that has some absolute slammin' fries. And McDonald's is one of them. McDonald's is a place where I would just go get fries and a Coke just to get those things. Yeah. Like, it's, they're so good. And just the, the, the same way that you're gonna get

orange chicken to have three pieces, the idea that I'm on my diarrhea island and I'm going to McDonald's anyway to get the burgers, what am I, am I, I'm not gonna get, what do I not want fries fries with my fucking idiot? I'll grab some fries, not small. That's silly. I'll grab a medium fries to go with my French fry burrito and my, uh, uh, hateful waffle fries. I, if I'm, if I'm, if it's an Island and I die after this, then I think I have to, there is like a beef one that I have been missing

for a long, long time. Like one that I desperately want to get. And it's the bacon cheeseburger from Wendy's. Ooh, like is that Baconator? I think so, yeah. That I haven't obviously, I haven't had for years and years and years. I don't eat pork either.

So yeah, so the combination is just like it's double damage for me. At this point, if I even ate it, it would make me sick, I think. But I used to get it when I was younger and it was the we'd come back from like skiing or snowboarding and on the way back, we would get it. And I was in heaven every single time I ate it. And so I would probably get that again, just to taste it again. Yeah.

I thought when you were first talking about this, that this is your, the meal you have every day for the rest of your life scenario. Oh, no. But no, I'm building my perfect like, Yeah, you're just gonna get your absolute best. I live in a food court

and I'm just picking each item to go with it. I've been silent on dessert because I'm not a dessert person and not that fast food restaurants in general care about dairy or egg allergies to begin with. In so far as some do, they definitely don't care when it comes to dessert. McDonald's will be accommodating to a point and they they'll say, like, yeah, you can have chicken, you can have a salad, and then if you want dessert, you can fucking grow a pair. You

can just have a McFlurry like everybody else. We are not going to make a dairy-free option for you. You can have apple slices and a spit in the face. That's what we think you deserve for dessert. The reason that this came up for me was that I was recently looking through new menu items for fast food restaurants, which is a thing that I don't know how these things come across my plate, but obviously they do it because my algorithm knows me. I noticed that Taco Bell is doing basically chicken tenders now. I don't know if that's all of them or just some, but they have obviously a bunch of different sauces that go along with these chicken tenders, which I'm very curious about.

Taco Bell is doing chicken tenders. I know. I know. They just they just pared down their menu. Remember like when they went through and they're like, we're fucking done with all this shit. We're just doing tacos and burritos from now on. Now they're like, well, we're going to do this Cantina menu too. And while we're at it, we're also going to have some chicken tenders. And while we're at it, we're going to make a Baja Blast Mountain Dew Pie. And I can't tell you how curious I am about this Baja Blast Mountain Dew pie. I don't know if it's...

I tried to get it. I'm trying to... I tried to get it. I'm trying to... My brain is trying to rearrange those words and I have to say, no, that's the order. The order is correct. Now make sense of them in that order. And my brain is not up to the challenge, I don't think.

Baja Blast Mountain Dew pie? I would like you to look at the color of this thing. All right. Well, we can't both be typing during the podcast. I'm sorry, I'm just pulling it up so that I can describe it accurately. First of all, you're getting a dollop of whipped cream on the top.

I'm just gonna say that upfront, like what a gift that is for them to be like, Oh, this is bad. And then if you know the color of scope, that's the color of this pie. This is some fucking Skeeter Valentine pie. This is Skeeter pie, Sorin. It's no good. The closest approximation I can give you in terms of visually what it looks like. It looks like key lime pie if it was made with toothpaste.

Yeah, 100% toothpaste pie. Yeah. So somebody tested this. This has been through the ringer. They went through this. In order for this to Stephen gets to the marketing team that somebody had in the background had to be like, we're going to try it. Is it good? It's pretty good. I think we could sell this. And the fact that all that work went into this means that I'm going to bite into that and there's good. I'm going to find some enjoyment in it. I'm

not just going to eat that and be like, this is dog shit. There's no way, there's no way. They put thought into it. I don't think they can, because they're not gonna make enough money of people buying it out of curiosity. That's not their marketing strategy. They're gonna make some from that for sure. After this podcast especially, they're gonna get some curious people who are like, I have to try this fucking thing. Take one bite, throw it out. They must

know they're going to get that, but they also must sincerely think people will be returned customers and get it again because it's too expensive to market and make a product just for people to do it as a bit. Yeah. Yeah. And of course, my white whale that I never got to try, which was El Pollo Loco for a while around a s'mores quesadilla. And it was a chocolate tortilla. It had fluffer nutter, some sort of spreadable form of marshmallow in it and a chocolate fudge in it. And they melted it all down so it was hot as shit.

And you bite through it and you'd still get that cheese pull but it was from marshmallow instead. Man, that's the dream. And I was saving it for myself. I was like, it's almost the holidays. This is something that I'm gonna need in like the leaner months, with like January, February,

when I want winter to be over and it's not. And I missed it. And I still think about it to this day. How I never got to have that. But if I find out a dessert is on a menu, a new dessert is on a fast food menu, I'm fucking there. I want to go. I've just gone so long without dessert of any kind that I'm almost never craving it.

And I'm the same way that I don't want cereal even though there are plenty of dairy-free milk options available to me. She's like, no, that part of me has died. That ship has sailed. I would, you know, I'll take a dairy-free ice cream. I'll get the no dairy Ben and Jerry's fish food or some nonsense like that. But you know, that's not a fast food concoction.

And how beautiful is it that you can live your life that way? That you decide this thing is not for me and so you stop caring about it. That's what I always have wanted to do with fast food. I've always wanted to be like, no, Soren, this is for someone else. Yeah. This is for a different type of person than you.

You don't want this. And I see how you can do that. You do that with soda too. You're just not a sugar guy because at some point in your life you were like, I see how you can do that. You do that with soda too. You do that, you're just not a sugar guy because at some point in your life, you were like, I'd rather spend this. I'd rather like eat things that I think are really delicious and complex rather than just like this straight up sugar.

And now you become a better person for it because now you're like, I don't crave it because it's not, it hasn't been a part of my diet. I am the opposite. I never grew up. I want the opposite. I never grew up. I want sugar bad. I need it. And after every single meal, it's like a cigarette to me.

It's like, I want, I will finish a meal and be like, and now my body needs some sugar and needs something at the end. So now you understand my draw to Chick-fil-A's hateful vengeance fries. I would love to not have them. But they have previously been free. When my son was born, no, it was my daughter. My daughter was born, it was during COVID. And we would have to still go out in the world because we couldn't just stay home all the time because we would die. We had to go out in the world because we couldn't just stay home all the time

because we would die. We had to like go out and like, we find like beaches we could go to that were Tidepool beaches. So like no one's there, but you're walking around and you're looking at anemones and stuff like that. Just places where we could avoid other human beings. But that also means that along the way

we're getting food too. So we're getting like fast food out of windows, drive through windows because we don't want to go into restaurants. It's pronounced Wendy's. And my son, obviously, because he's a child, loved McDonald's. Just like McDonald's is locked in.

They know they didn't even need the clown they realized. They're like, this clown is a waste of our fucking time. Kids love this shit. We will get, we have them hooked, it's fine. So we would go to McDonald's and the chicken options there are pretty bad. They're horrid. They've not figured out chicken somehow at McDonald's,

but they've figured out everything else. So there was about a period of a year maybe where I was getting a Big Mac when I would go to McDonald's. And it's because I started with one, I was like, you know what? It's just two little pieces of beef. I was like talking myself into it, same way. Where is your hay fries?

I was like, you know what? Who cares? You've been off beef for so long. You've been, think all the trees that grew because of you. And I ate the first one and that was the problem. It was delicious and I felt good afterwards. I didn't feel like, oh, oh, I should have done that. You want that.

You want to be like those contestants on Survivor who tried real food for the first time and then get sick and they regret it because it was too rich too soon. You don't want to be, you don't want to come out the other side stronger. That's the wrong lesson. When I felt good afterwards, I was like, this is a, this is the end. This out the other side stronger. That's the wrong lesson. When I felt good afterwards, I was like, this is the end.

This is the end for me. I feel really, I liked it. And then I didn't, there was no reckoning for me personally. And so I was like, I'm gonna keep getting. Even you drove by and a cow looked at you and winked like, it's fine. We don't mind. I mean, I wasn't, obviously it wasn't at a point

where I was going to then go get my Baconator again, thinking like, I'm back on it, baby. Because that's way too much meat. Even a quarter pounder, I was like, it's gonna be just too much. I will get these two little, like a shaving of a hockey puck. And I would start to look forward to it. We would be like out somewhere and I'd be like, should we go to McDonald's? It'd be crazy. I mean, I really

liked their fries, I really liked their Coke. And now I was getting this meat thing that was illegal to me previously and now I could have, and I was really, really enjoying it. And I had to like turn it off. I had to be like, no, you don't have to go there anymore. If you take your children now, there is a special day where they're going to McDonald's, you have lots of other options you can go to, and that's fine.

I stopped doing it and I still think about it. I can still think about like how delicious a Big Mac is, how good the sauce is when it spills out the sides and you catch it on your fries. Mm. And this podcast, sponsored by McDonald's. ["MACDONALD'S BUSINESS"] Each one of our burgers is made up of at least 100 cows.

We guarantee it. Man, wouldn't that be a fucking nightmare for me if as hard as I've been trying to get free sponsorship from Lululemon and Manhattan Special as I've been trying to get free sponsorship from Lululemon and Manhattan Special that we're going to get someone from Chick-fil-A's social media team that is like, first of all, good morning and God bless. Second of all, love the show. Would you be interested in wearing some Chick-fil-A merch and we'll keep you in fries for the rest of your fucking life. Oh my God. What a choice that would be for you. What a... I mean, you got to do it.

I got to do it for the rest of my life. You had a free shirt. Come on. I didn't even know the fries were coming. I just knew there was going to be free clothing. And I was like, I am. My stuff's getting pretty threadbare. I wouldn't mind that. I was in at an unsolicited message that starts with good morning and God bless. It's nice to hear. We never say it anymore. The war on morning. That's what we've been dealing with for so long.

Okay. Well, I like your meals, Dan. I think you've made some good choices. Del Taco is a big swing. Del Taco is a place that I used to enjoy a lot and then I feel like they fell off, not me. I think it was them. I think they got grosser and grosser.

And I was like, I can't do this anymore. I haven't had Del Taco since I left California. They might be out here and I just don't know about it. Oh, right. I didn't, Del Taco was just like a 10 year stretch of my life when I lived in LA. So it's just this beautiful, perfect, like the song of my twenties was Del Taco.

And then I could leave it and it's a breakup with an ex when there's no hard feelings. It's just like, I learned a lot with you. Um, I wish you the best out here. It would be insane to bring you back with me to the East coast. Live your life. Uh, get your shit rocked by a bunch of other guys out there. I don't care.

Good luck. Touch. I'm going home. Peace. Uh, yeah'm going home. Peace. Yeah, there's, there, I, we obviously we didn't do a lot of the East Coast specific stuff. Like there's Hardee's out there. I did think I did mention Carl's Jr. but that's like obviously Hardee's there and then White Castle, the sliders are delicious.

Then like there's little chicken sliders that are also very good. I think that they even have onion rings on their menu that are pretty fucking good. Not everything can win. Not everything can win in this competition. I thought about fat cells. That's a chain out there, fat cells. It has fat sandwiches. They, I believe, so fat sandwiches originated in Rutgers University where I went to school and they've spread around to a couple of other East Coast campuses. The way a fat sandwich works is it's a whole bunch of ingredients of things that you would find in a greasy pizzeria or a grease truck,

which where they were born. It's like chicken figures, mozzarella sticks, french fries, cheese steak on one sandwich. That was what a fat sandwich was. It was college staple and we owned it and we loved it. And then I believe it was Turtle from Entourage who took that idea and opened up a restaurant in California called Fat Sal's, which basically does fat sandwiches. And he franchised it and made even more money than his entourage money doing

it. I hope no one fact checks this. I'm pretty sure if it's not true, it's very close to being true, close enough that we could just let it live. But I thought about them too, because as much as I don't love the idea of fat sandwiches being franchised out from beneath Rutgers by turtle from entourage. I did eat a lot of it when I was on the West Coast. I would certainly get these big greasy sandwiches. I don't even understand how it works. I'm familiar with it. I think there was an article written about it back when it was at Just Rutgers and everyone was talking about it. Everyone in world was like confused to how these sandwiches exist because it would be like a chicken parmesan with chicken nuggets on

it as well as well as French fries and like some grape soda on it. You're like, how? This is, as good as it will be that I knew without Googling that it was turtle, this will also be some pretty good memory recall if I'm right. I don't think it was an article. I mean, it was an article that you read. It was very likely in Maxim's list of best sandwiches issue. That does sound like me.

So you picked up Maxim because you were hoping it was gonna be Maxim's hometown hotties issue. And instead it was their sandwiches issue. And I believe number one was the fat Darrell, the original fat sandwich out of Rutgers. So, well, yeah, how are they doing? They're putting like, they're putting cheesesteak ingredients on there,

but then you're also getting like a chicken Parmesan in there at the same time. Like how are you tasting anything? You will get burgers and chicken fingers on one tightly compacted sandwich and you get all of it. You really do get each individual bit and it's all perfect and it all works well together. And the story that goes along with it was always fun.

That's what made it such a good part of that issue of Maxim, because it felt very organic and very real. It was this guy, Darrell, who walked into a pizza shop in New Brunswick, New Jersey, and was staring at everything on the menu and didn't really know what he wanted. He didn't have a ton of money, and he just went up to the cash register and was like, can I get chicken fingers and french fries

and mozzarella sticks and marinara sauce in a sandwich. And they were just like, yeah, we can do that. We can do that for you. Oh, and he goes, great. How much is it? And they go, seven dollars. Was like, great. And then immediately other people online were like, I would like that too.

I also, you know, this is two in the morning college students. So draw your own conclusions, what everyone's state of mind was. But people were like, yes, that can you make six of those right now? And the restaurant was like, what's your name? Daryl. This is a fat Daryl. The sandwich is called the fat Daryl. This is a fat Daryl. The sandwich is called the fat Daryl and the first fat sandwich was born. It's very funny that the place was not, it wasn't

called Fat Sal's to begin with, right? No. It was just a pizza restaurant and they were like, what's your name? Daryl? We're not going to call it the Daryl. We're going to call it the fat Daryl. It's the fat Daryl. Are you sure your name is Daryl? Last chance. Yeah. Are you sure? You're going to call it the what? All right. We're going to call it the what? All right. We're going to call it the fat fuck Darrell. Well this is a little bit of fast food news if you care about this kind of thing. El Pollo Loco. Is that an East Coast thing?

Do they have it there? It might be. Or is it just here? I don't know. Is that an East Coast thing? Do they have it there? It might be. Or is it just here? I don't know. Okay. El Pollo Loco's, they used to have this thing called a mango habanero sauce that was really good. It would be in their little bar. They had the salsa bar. If you go to El Pollo Loco, it's probably one of the most healthy options for a fast food, which isn't saying much, but like it is, I think it's like they're just putting chicken on a grill. And then

you have a little condiments bar that has all these different salsas and they had this mango habanero salsa. And it was just like a sticky, like what you put on orange chicken, basically. It was delicious. It was so good. And you would just get like a roast chicken and you just dip it in that. And it was amazing. And sometimes Dan, we get a BRC burrito, which is a beans, rice and cheese burrito.

Take some of their fries, you'd open it up, you put those fries right inside, and then you dip it all in the mango habanero salsa. It was incredible. They got rid of that. They used to have baked beans too, baked black beans that were really delicious. Those are gone.

They got rid of a lot of stuff, but the mango habanero sauce is back at El Pollo Loco right now. Whoa, this is huge news. Best believe, I don't have work this morning. Sauce is back at El Pollo Loco right now. Whoa. And- This is huge news. Best believe, I don't have work this morning. That's where I'm going right after this. I'm getting it again.

And I'm reliving the magic. Very funny. If I don't have work this morning, I was fired. And that was the, we didn't touch on that the entire episode and it just sort of like a sidebar to the larger point about why you're free to get salsa. And why I'm so obsessed with fast food all of a sudden.

What if you really needed to stretch your money for a long time? Yeah, so if that's something that interests you, go get it. I'm sorry again, we didn't mention Crystal or like Southern fast food restaurants that are also- The hell is Crystal? Oh, Crystal's great. Crystal's awesome. They do chicken and waffles there. It's mostly a burger place, but they've got like some other options that aren't available anywhere else.

What's that like Midwest- Rallies we didn't do. There's a Midwest Ohio chain or something that- Dairy Queen? No. It's- Sonic? No.

It's going to... Because we have Sonic and Dairy Queen out here too, but there's something that Midwest people frequently bring up that just never hit me on either coast. Maybe I haven't gotten it either. I am going to Wisconsin this summer. Oh, Door County or somewhere else? Yeah, Door County. If I can... How do you know about Door County? What do you know about Door County? I think you've been there before and you talked to me about it. And my in-laws are all from Illinois and Door County is not a far ride from where they grew up. Yeah.

Okay. Let me give you some things here. There's Culver's. Culver's. That's the one. I found it. You found it and sent it to me. I have been to a Culver's before. There's one in Tucson.

Buttery Buns, pretty hit or miss for in terms of what they're actually serving up. I don't think it's particularly good. And now you don't have to go. Great. All right, well, if you ever want to do this again with casual dining, I'm happy to do that. I'd have to really brush up on my menu items.

I don't really know what Applebee's is serving up. The only thing I really know is Red Robin, which I've forced you to go to in the past because it is my absolute favorite casual dining restaurant. I know, they've got those sugary sweet drinks and they've got the bottomless fries, which are a fantastic staple thing of Red Robin. I don't think we would need to do

the fast casual version of this show, because across the board, all fast casual food has gotten so much worse. I think it started in the pandemic, or maybe that's just a coincidence of timing, but it just seems like in our lifetime, the idea of fast casual restaurants is going to go away. I think we'll get a whole lot more ghost kitchens springing up where you can get like an approximation of Chili's food.

Nobody's going to sit down. From a place, but nobody just, nobody wants it anymore, unfortunately. That sucks. I mean, people used to go on dates to Applebee's. People sure did, Sorin, with Gina. I, what a sad thing to lose all that fucking schlock on the walls. I know. That dusty schlock. I mean, Benegans itself was a big heartbreaker when that went away.

But I'm sad to hear that those aren't gonna make it. But also they have gotten pretty dog shit. Yeah, I mean, I don't know for sure. Like this isn't breaking news or anything like that. I don't know for sure. You announced it. I guess this is me trying to read the tea leaves based on my observations and listening to Doughboys,

which for all intents and purposes, hey folks, thanks for listening to Doughboys today. That's what it means to be served up to you. Yeah, you're welcome. If that's what you wanted, then here's another taste of it. All right. Well, that's the end of it. All right. Well, that's the end of our show. Hey, great.

We talked about fast food for a very long time. Sorry if that's not your thing. We also talk about fucking working out too. So just pick and choose. And multiple times during the recording of this episode, one or the other one of us has said breaking news and it has been about mango sauce coming to El Pollo Loco and it has been about an opinion about the future of fast casual restaurants.

We didn't mention while we were recording, there's a new pope that was coronated while we were speaking. An American Pope. You know what else has a lot of white smoke coming out of the top of it? It's Malpoio Loco. Oh, let's get back on it. It's like basically a new Pope every day there.

All right. Yeah, all right. Best of news from the Pope. Thank you everybody for listening. Me Rex does our theme song, Gabe Harter is our editor, producer, sound engineer, and the glue to the podcast. You can find Daniel and I on Blue Sky. Goodbye!

Best of news to the Pope. I've got a quick quick question for you alright The answer's not important I'm just glad that we could talk tonight So what's your favourite? Who did you get? Who would I be? You remember? Words without a word and all that you're going on Oh forget it

I saw a movie Daniel O'Brien Two best friends and comedy writers If there's an answer they're gonna find it I think you'll have a great time here I think you'll have a great time here